In the process of covering floor, wall and counter surfaces with ceramic tile and the like, individual tiles, or sheets of mosaic glued to a mesh webbing, are individually set into either some form of adhesive, or some form of mortar. In the process of setting the individual pieces, it is known to use tile spacers to assist in achieving uniformly sized grout spacing between the tiles or sheets of mosaic. These are typically in the shape of a cross, so as to define a corner where four tiles will intersect. One leg of the cross can be cut off, making a T spacer, which can be used when an offset layup is utilized, with T-shaped grout spaces at the intersection of three tiles. The spacers are typically made of semi-rigid plastic having depths ranging from 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch, with spacing widths of between 1/16 of an inch and 3/8 of an inch. For brick, cement block and larger tiles, larger sizes of spacers, with considerably more depth, are used.
The spacers are sometimes used edgewise as an aid to laying out an array of tiles where a long row of dry tiles can be laid out, set apart by the edgewise spacers. Such spacers also are sometimes used edgewise as stacking spacers for vertical installations (wall tiles).
Most tile layers have large, heavily callused fingers and find the spacers hard to handle. The spacers must be removed from the grooves between the tiles after the tiles are set, by means of a pick, thin spatula, or other spacer remover tools. When working with the spacers, it is difficult to handle them and move them around. Additionally, they provide no guide to the depth of the lay of the tiles (the uniformness of the final finish across several tiles) as the job proceeds.